


The devil riding your back

by nicasio_silang



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:01:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicasio_silang/pseuds/nicasio_silang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something in his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The devil riding your back

He gets drunk and falls and dreams of waking up freezing cold with something in his chest. Usually, in his dreams, he's whole, and so now, in this dream, the horror is new again. There's a hole in his chest and he can feel something moving inside him. He's lying on his back, he won't look down, but he knows the hole is gaping, an open wound, his heart pumping exposed into the thin, cold air. He can feel it. He can feel a breeze on his heart, through his insides, and he can feel something moving. 

He's lying on the floor. It's hard and dirt and rock. The ceiling above him is dimly lit, gray, rock. His hands are bare, palms flat in the dirt, he can feel it on his fingertips, but he can't clench them into a fist. He breathes hard, stares at the tip of his nose and thinks about lifting one finger off the ground. All his muscles are slack. He feels like he hasn't moved in years. Like he hasn't slept in years. He can feel the tension in that one finger. It shakes. His entire arm shakes, the bones of his elbow clatter like a baby's rattle, and he can hear them inside his skull. He can't wiggle his toes. He can't look down. He can't lift his head. He can't lift his finger.

He knows, if someone else would come and move him, just a bit, just get him started, lift his finger for him, that everything would flow from that. He could clench his fists and bend his arms and stand up. He could move and be safe. The panic would subside. He just needs someone to start it for him. In the corner of his vision, where vision is uncertain and half imagination, he sees the shadow of a movement, as big as a man. If he could shout, they would come over and help him get moving. He must look asleep like this, on the floor, in the dark, still as the grave. But the muscles in his throat are like the muscles in his arm, and when he tries to shout he just rattles his breath, not even to a whisper. The shadow in the corner moves away and the thing in his chest slithers up onto his skin.

He can feel it feeling around the edges of the hole, probing along the broken skin and tissues, fingering the wet mess under the surface. Disgust curls like a spring in his guts, and he tries to fall asleep. He closes his eyes and doesn't want to feel the thing in his chest sliding out again and crawling to his collarbones. He opens his eyes and can see its outline darkly, moving up slow and animal, deliberate, alien. He thinks he can smell it. The sickly hot smell of smelting and sweat, a damp cloth left out for days. He can't move, his bones rattle in their sockets. 

He's a coward; the only sound he makes is a whimper because he can see it, he can feel it. A hand, familiar, with grit under its fingernails. A wrist, an arm through the hole in his chest. Slick with his blood and his body, sliding its skin on his skin, smothering his heart where it fights, and reaching. Reaching up to his neck and wrapping its fingers around. 

He thinks, oh God. He thinks, I did this. He thinks, there's something in my chest and I can't breathe. He can't move. He can't move his finger. There is no-one in the corner of the room. He can see the hairs on the back of the hand, unexpectedly large and black. The tendons and veins of the hand stand up. He thinks, nobody will come for me.

He closes his eyes and he's drunk, on the floor. It's hard and cold. His limbs feel slack. He can breathe. He can move, a little. His head hurts. His elbows hurt where they impacted the cement. He can't see very well. His breathing is harsh, his throat is sore, his shoes are untied, his shirt is unkempt, he can't remember what he was working on when he fell, he's holding a welding mask in one hand. And there's something in his chest.


End file.
